I like a snappy list of random things, don't you?

1. It's almost Christmas, and my favourite places to shop in Winnipeg are Black Market Provisions and Toad Hall Toys. These stars look so pretty and tonight, it would be fun to go to a Student Show and Sale. The Events Calendar here feels so festive! Christian and I adopted the idea of keeping a Google Doc of gift ideas for each other from this episode of Hidden Brain.

2. What will you do with your history degree? (I don't know!) However, reading the Canadian Historical Association's report was oddly comforting. Also, people studying history are fewer and fewer in number apparently...

3. I've started baking, because cookies are delightful and my sister is visiting which is all the more impetus for making things cozy here! (Maybe I’ll try a new recipe?)

4. Last week I spent the days intensively working on a surprise for the family. I'm the kind of person that almost bursts at the thought of having to keep a surprise and avoiding doing so requires an attitude of cool indifference - as if I had to decide to draw a curtain over all the scenes my imagination puts together. And I have lots of imagination! Not enough to write a novel, unfortunately, but enough to amuse myself with silliness. Years ago I took my SLR and photographed made-up scenes using my then-toddlers' toys. I thought that things that made me laugh would be too ridiculous to share and stopped.

5. I've often been paralyzed by the thought of perfection. Drawing has been somewhat therapeutic in this regard. I've been forcing myself to draw a person (whole or just the face) everyday for the past few months after stumbling over myself in the last year and a half. It's more than just accepting that results take practice... it's getting over the enthusiasm of a new idea and accepting that desire for a result must be subdued. Meekly, it becomes a habit and a habit in its purest form should be executed with a kind of simple attention that is light and not grasping or weighed down with expectation. And reaching that mode of working takes its own time and suffers onslaughts of impatience, but that's fine... that's just how it is.